A Tale of Two Kings Alfred the Great and Æthelred the Unready

A Tale of Two Kings: Alfred the Great and Æthelred the UnreadyAuthor(s): Simon KeynesSource: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fifth Series, Vol. 36 (1986), pp. 195-217Published by: Royal Historical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3679065 .Accessed: 30/05/2011 15:00

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=rhs. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Royal Historical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Transactions ofthe Royal Historical Society.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=rhs

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3679065?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=rhs

A TALE OF TWO KINGS: ALFRED THE GREAT AND ATHELRED THE UNREADY

By Simon Keynes READ 13 DECEMBER I985

IN the gallery of Anglo-Saxon kings, there are two whose characters are fixed in the popular imagination by their familiar epithets: Alfred the Great and Athelred the Unready. Of course both epithets are products of the posthumous development of the kings' reputations (in opposite directions), not expressions of genuinely contem-

porary attitudes to the kings themselves: Athelred's appears to have

originated in the twelfth century as a witty play on the king's name

('Ethel-red un-red'-'noble counsel, my foot!', or sentiments to that

effect), though the word-play later gave way to 'unready', with rather different implications;' and Alfred was not generally called 'the Great' until the sixteenth century.2 Yet whatever their origins, both epithets seem now to be judgements on the quality of each

king's handling of the Viking menace, and to encourage direct com-

parisons after the manner of Edward Freeman: 'Alfred had carried

England through dangers as great as those which threatened her now [in tAthelred's reign]; but it needed an Alfred to do such work. Under AEthelred, nothing was done; or, more truly, throughout his whole reign he left undone those things which he ought to have

done, and he did those things which he ought not to have done.'3 A

tendency persists in certain quarters to seek the simplest explanation for the different fortunes of Alfred and AEthelred in terms of their

1 S. Keynes, 'The declining reputation of King Athelred the Unready', in Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference, ed. D. Hill (British Archaeological Reports, British ser. lix, 1978), 227-53, at 240-I; see also Walter Map: De Nugis Curialium, ed. M.R. James, revised C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford Medieval Texts, 1983), 4 2-I 3.

2E.G. Stanley, 'The glorification of Alfred king of Wessex', Poetica (Tokyo), xii (1981), 103-33, at I03-4; S. Keynes and M. Lapidge, Alfred the Great: Asser's 'Life of King Alfred' and other contemporary sources (Harmondsworth, 1983), 44. But these remarks are now in need of modification: for in a marginal note in his Gesta Abbatum, written c. 1250, Matthew Paris states plainly that Alfred was called 'the Great' (British Libr., Cotton MS Nero D. i, fo. 3ov; see Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani, ed. H. T. Riley (3 vols., Rolls ser., xxviii, 1867-9), i. I0 n. I).

3E.A. Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England (6 vols., Oxford, 1867-79), i (2nd edn., I870), 297; compare Freeman's remarkable encomium on Alfred (ibid., 48-52) with his astonishing assault on AEthelred (ibid., 258-60).

I95

196 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

respective personalities. In the case of Alfred, it was the king's own resourcefulness, courage and determination that brought the West Saxons through the Viking invasions, for it was these qualities, com-

plemented by his concern for the well-being of his subjects, that

inspired and maintained the people's loyalty towards the king and

generated their support for his cause. Whereas in the case of 1Ethelred, it was the king's incompetence, weakness and vacillation that brought the kingdom to ruin, for it was these failings, exacer- bated by his displays of cruelty and spite, that alienated the people and made them abandon his cause. Few historians, perhaps, would subscribe to such a view expressed as bluntly as that, and more, I

suspect, would consider such comparisons to be futile and probably misconceived in the first place. I would maintain, however, that

something is to be gained from the exercise of comparing the two

kings in fairly broad terms: by juxtaposing discussions of the status of the main narrative accounts of each king's reign we can more

easily appreciate how their utterly different reputations arose, and see, moreover, that in certain respects the apparent contrast between them might actually be deceptive; by comparing the predicament in which each king was placed we can better understand how one

managed to extricate himself from trouble while the other suc- cumbed; and overall we can more readily judge how much, or how little, can be attributed to personal qualities or failings on the part of the kings themselves.4

The impression we have of a contrast between Alfred's resolute defiance, leading inexorably to victory, and AEthelred's feeble resistance, leading inevitably to defeat, stems to a great extent from the tenor of the accounts of their reigns in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Of its very nature the Chronicle creates a semblance of uniformity and even of objectivity, and one might well imagine, therefore, that the

apparent contrast between the two kings arises from good and con-

temporary authority. It should not be forgotten, however, that the main accounts of Alfred and tEthelred were written under very different circumstances, in each case profoundly affecting the presentation of the general course of events.

The Chronicle for Alfred's reign is of complex construction, and identification of its separate components depends on a combination

4An earlier version of this paper was given at the 4th meeting of the Haskins Society, in Houston, Texas, on 10 Nov. 1985, and I am grateful to Professors Warren Hollister and Sally Vaughn for making that possible. I should like to thank David Dumville, David Howlett and Janet Nelson for their guidance; Robin Fleming, Katie Mack and Tom Keefe for their conversation; and Richard Abels, Bernard Bachrach and Matthew Strickland for their strategic insights.

ALFRED THE GREAT AND AETHELRED THE UNREADY

of linguistic, textual, palaeographical and historical considerations.5 The compilation of the so-called 'common stock' of the Chronicle, from its beginning at 6o B.C. down to a point in the early 89os, was a considerable achievement of scholarly enterprise: it involved the

gathering of material of different kinds from various sources, and seems to have been accomplished not by one man in isolation but

by a group of men working together; it remains uncertain who was

responsible for its compilation, though for various reasons it seems

likely that its compilers were associated in some way with the circle of scholars around King Alfred himself.6 I should add, however, that if it is a 'court' production, it is one only in the sense that it may have been conceived and planned at meetings which took place at court, for one still imagines that the actual work of compilation was done in what might be termed the localities elsewhere.7 Linguistic analysis has suggested that the annals for the 87os were composed by one man, and those for the 88os by another; it is possible that the second person was continuing an earlier (and independent) com-

pilation, but it seems more likely that he was part of the main

collaborating team, and that this team was active in the late 88os and early 89os. The annals for 89I and 892 cannot be associated with, or dissociated from, the preceding annals by application of

linguistic criteria alone, but on textual and historical grounds they do seem to belong to the common stock, and not with the material which follows.8 The decision to multiply copies of the common stock would seem to have been taken in 892, and might have been precipitated by the arrival in that year of Viking armies from the continent; in other words, the issuing of the Chronicle could be seen as a reflex action on the part of its compilers, in a moment of grave national crisis.9 It would be mistaken, however, to infer that the

5 The study of the Chronicle has been placed on a new footing in a series of important articles by J. Bately: 'The compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 60 BC to AD 890: vocabulary as evidence', Proceedings of the British Academy, Ixiv (I980 for 1978), 93-I29; 'World History in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: its sources and its separateness from the old English Orosius', Anglo-Saxon England (hereafter ASE), viii (1979), I77- 94; 'Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle', in Saints, Scholars and Heroes, ed. M. H. King and W. M. Stevens (2 vols., Collegeville, Minnesota, I979), i, 233-54; and 'The compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle once more', in Sources and Relations, ed. M. Collins, J. Price and A. Hamer (Leeds Studies in English, xvi, 1985), 7-26. In the following paragraph I draw on Professor Bateley's material, but differ on some points of interpretation.

6 Keynes and Lapidge, 39-4 . 7 For 'local' emphasis in the Chronicle, see F. M. Stenton, 'The south-western element

in the Old English Chronicle', in Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England, ed. D. M. Stenton (Oxford, I970), io6- 5; again, however, I differ on points of interpretation.

8 Keynes and Lapidge, 277-9. 'D. Whitelock, 'The importance of the battle of Edington', reprinted in From Bede

to Alfred (1980), XIII, 6-I5, at 7-8, implies that when the Chronicle was compiled the

I97


earlier Alfredian annals, down to 892, were conceived as specifically West Saxon dynastic propaganda, and intended to encourage the king's subjects to support his cause; for by this stage Alfred had outgrown his origins, and tub-thumping to that tune would no longer have been appropriate.10 As an integral part of the common stock the annals have a wider theme and a milder purpose: they project a view of the common history of the English peoples and the emergence of Alfred as their natural leader, intended not so much for the instruction of the people at large as for the gratification of a fantasy entertained by those actually involved in the Chronicle's compilation.

It is the chronicler who wrote the account of Alfred's wars in the 87os who is largely, if indirectly, responsible for the traditional picture of Alfred as the great warrior who led his people to victory over the Viking invaders.ll What I find so striking about this account is not the way it allows the reader to believe that the situation was worse than it may actually have been,l2 but the way it creates the impression that the situation was not as bad as it actually was. The West Saxons were faced with a desperate struggle for survival in the 87os, and on at least two occasions came very close indeed to total defeat: in 87 , when the Danes won four of the six battles mentioned by name in that year, and again in 878, when the Danes brought Alfred almost to his knees at Athelney; but the seriousness of the situation in the 87os is effectively obscured (whether intentionally or not) by the chronicler's deft turns of phrase and by his generally restrained manner of report.

Consider, for example, how he manages to salvage some crumbs of comfort out of three of the Danish victories in 871: at Reading, 'a great slaughter was made on both sides ... and the Danes had possession of the battlefield'; at Meretun, the West Saxons put the Danes to flight 'and were victorious far on into the day, and there was a great slaughter on both sides, and the Danes had possession of the battlefield'; and at Wilton, Alfred put the Danes to flight 'far on into the day, and the Danes had possession of the battlefield'.'3

crisis had passed; but one doubts that Alfred ever felt so secure that he could afford to relax his guard.

10 Keynes and Lapidge, 217 n. 62. l Note, e.g., Asser's description of Alfred as 'a great warrior and victorious in

virtually all battles' (Life of King Alfred (trans. in Keynes and Lapidge), ch. 42). 12 Cf. R. H. C. Davis, 'Alfred the Great: propaganda and truth', History, lvi (I971),

I69-82, at 170-3. 13 Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel (hereafter ASC), ed. C. Plummer (2 vols.,

Oxford, 1892-9), i. 70-3; English Historical Documents, i, c.5o00-o42, ed. D. Whitelock (2nd edn., 1979) (hereafter EHD), no. I, pp. 192-3.

ALFRED THE GREAT AND JETHELRED THE UNREADY

The Danes may have won, but didn't the English do well? Or consider how the chronicler refers to those occasions in the 870s when the English came to terms with the Viking invaders: in 871, after all the battles, 'the West Saxons made peace with the enemy'; in 876, when the Vikings appeared suddenly at Wareham, 'the king made peace with the enemy and they gave him hostages, who were the most important men next to their king in the army, and swore oaths to him on the holy ring-a thing which they would not do before for any nation-that they would speedily leave his kingdom'; in 877 Alfred pursued the Vikings to Exeter but could not cut them off, 'and they gave him hostages there, as many as he wished to have, and swore great oaths and then kept a firm peace'; and in 878, after Edington, 'the enemy gave [Alfred] preliminary hostages and great oaths that they would leave his kingdom, and promised also that their king should receive baptism, and they kept their promise'.l4 The chronicler thus allows his readers to believe that Alfred had somehow pacified his enemies, on terms advantageous to himself: it is he who makes the peace,15 and it is the Vikings who give the hostages and swear the oaths. But of course these allusions to Alfred's peace-making activities actually belong in the wider context of all agreements reached between groups of Vikings and their victims, whether Frankish or English, in the ninth and tenth centuries; it is a subject which needs to be studied in detail, but it is clear that the making of peace usually entailed payments of tribute and the provision of supplies to the Vikings, the exchange of hostages, the reciprocal swearing of oaths and agreement of terms, in different combinations according to the particular circumstances, sometimes with further refinements such as baptism of the Viking leaders and the drawing up of a written treaty.16 In fact it would appear that Alfred's peace-making in 87I, 876 and 877 involved not only the payment of tribute but also the giving of hostages to the Vikings; the same was doubtless true of the various occasions in the 86os and 87os when the East Angles, Northumbrians and Mercians are said to have 'made peace' with the Vikings, so we must suppose either that the chronicler was even-handed in his use of the idiom, and was not only concerned to save face for Alfred and the West Saxons, or (and more likely) that he took the nature of peace-making for

4 ASC, ed. Plummer, i. 72-7; EHD, no. I, pp. 193-6. 15The Old English idiom is niman frid wid, literally 'to get peace from' or 'to

establish a truce with'; cf. C. Fell's review of F. D. Logan, The Vikings in History (1983), in Slavonic Review, Ixii (1984), 592-4.

16 For accounts of negotiations between Franks and Vikings, which are so interesting in this connection, see, e.g., the Annals of Saint-Bertin, s.a. 862, 866 and 873, and the Annals of Saint- Vaast, s.a. 877, 884, 886 and 888; both sets of annals are in Quellen zur karolingischen Reichsgeschichte, ii, ed. R. Rau (Darmstadt, 1958).

199


granted.17 The peace made by Alfred in 878 followed his victory at Edington, and was plainly much more to his advantage: it emerges from Asser's account that on this occasion Alfred did not give hostages to the Vikings,18 and although he did shower Guthrum and his companions with gifts, after Guthrum's baptism, there is no reason to suppose that any payment of tribute was involved. Alfred had come through in the end, and deserves all credit for that, but only after a struggle which is a far cry from the traditional tale of heroic resistance.

The account of Alfred's later wars, given in annals 893-6, forms a direct continuation of the common stock, but it is textually and linguistically distinct from the preceding annals, and one cannot assume that it necessarily shares their status; the question of origin has to be considered afresh.19 It is clear that the chronicler was well informed, and indeed he displays a grasp of strategy and tactics which would not disgrace a modern military correspondent; nothing actually compels us to suppose that he was promulgating an 'official' view of events, but he may well have had access to sources of information at court, or close to those directly involved in the campaign. It is also important to emphasize that he was probably writing not long after the summer of 896, at a time when the details were still fresh in the memory, and when the immediate crisis had passed. One therefore has good reason to respect this chronicler's account of the campaign, and certainly he creates a convincing impression of it: for example, it seems that the Vikings were quite effectively contained, in the sense that they were denied the freedom of movement enjoyed by the Vikings active in England in the 87os, and in the sense that they were prevented from causing as much disruption as they had occasioned during their spell on the continent in the 88os;20 and of course the explanation is largely to be found in King Alfred's burghal system and other military reforms. Yet the chronicler does not conceal the fact that at an early stage King Alfred had tried to purchase peace from one of the Viking leaders, and he is

17 Keynes and Lapidge, 244 nn. 79-80, 245 n. 88, and 249 n. Io8. 18 Life, ch. 56. 19 On this part of the Chronicle, see Bately, 'Compilation ... once more'; C. Clark,

'The Narrative Mode of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle before the Conquest', in England before the Conquest, ed. P. Clemoes and K. Hughes (Cambridge, 1971), 215-35, at

221-4; and T. A. Shippey, 'A missing army: some doubts about the Alfredian Chron- icle', In Geardagum, iv (I982), 41-55.

20 It is particularly instructive to compare the impression created by the Annals of Saint- Vaast for the 88os with that created by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the 89os, in terms of the Vikings' apparent impact on the people, their freedom of movement, the

degree of resistance they encountered, and the nature of the sites where they were based.

ALFRED THE GREAT AND ETHELRED THE UNREADY

ready to expose some failures in the operation of the English defences; in short, the chronicler seems to be conveying a personal sense of relief that despite some difficulties the storm had been weathered.

King Alfred was thus served by two or three chroniclers, writing during his own lifetime and representing the views of men naturally loyal to their king and sympathetic to his interests. King AEthelred, on the other hand, was not quite so fortunate. The main account of his reign, in the annals from 983 to o106, was put together, possibly in London, by someone working after the king's death and in full knowledge of eventual defeat;21 there is no hint of any association between the chronicler and the court, and no suggestion that he had any particular expertise in military affairs or any privileged information on domestic politics. His purpose, looking back from his vantage point early in Cnut's reign, was to give some account of the circumstances which had led to the Danish conquest: he had no need to offer comfort or encouragement to his audience, since the cause was already lost; he was like a dead man conducting his own post-mortem.

The chronicler's analysis of the causes of defeat was probably influenced to the greatest extent by his own experience and judge- ment of the most recent events. There can be little doubt that English resistance in the closing years of AEthelred's reign was seriously undermined, not least by dissension among the leaders of the English people and by general disillusionment and disaffection on the part of the people themselves, in the face of overwhelming odds; moreover, it is possible that policies deemed sensible at the time when they were implemented, but which had not produced the desired result, had come in retrospect to be regarded as having made their own contribution to the people's misfortune. But if this, or something like it, was the chronicler's analysis, it may then have conditioned his presentation of the general course of the Viking invasions from their resumption soon after the beginning of AEthelred's reign, leaving his readers dependent for their understanding of the earlier part of the reign on an account coloured by knowledge of its unhappy end. We may wonder whether other people in different positions would necessarily have shared the chronicler's analysis, and whether attitudes would have been the same around the year I ooo as they came to be later on.

It is worth considering in this connection the accounts in the

21 Keynes, 'Declining reputation', 229-32; for a different view, see C. Hart, 'The early section of the Worcester Chronicle', Journal of Medieval History, ix (1983), 25 -315, at 298-30I and 307-8.

20I


Chronicle of the warfare in the year IooI. This is, in fact, the only year of Ethelred's reign for which we have two independent annals, one in MS A and the other in the main account common to MSS D and E.22 The annal in MS A was written probably at Winchester, and would seem to be strictly contemporary; it stands on its own, without any sign of its being other than a straightforward description of recent events which had a local interest. The corresponding annal in MSS C, D and E was written possibly at London, perhaps fifteen years later; as an integral part of the main account it reflects the chronicler's analysis of the reign as a whole. It is interesting that the Winchester annalist gives details of a raid in Hampshire which is not mentioned at all by the other chronicler, for the discrepancy serves to remind us that when we have only the latter as our guide (which is, of course, for most of the reign) we cannot assume that his account is either full or reliable in detail. But what is significant in the present context is the area where the two accounts overlap, for by the same token this is one of the few places where we can compare the word of a contemporary with that of one writing with hindsight. The contemporary annalist in MS A brings the Vikings to Pinhoe in Devon and describes the sequel thus: 'opposing them there were Kola, the king's high reeve, and Eadsige, the king's reeve, with what army they could gather, but they were put to flight there, and many were killed, and the Danes had control of the field. And the next morning they burned the residence at Pinhoe and at Clyst and also many good residences which we cannot name, and then went back east until they reached the Isle of Wight.' This picture of two reeves scraping together an apparently small force and then being overwhelmed by the Danes, who thereafter torched a number of settlements, should be set beside the later chronicler's account of the same events: 'Then an immense army was gathered there of the people of Devon and Somerset, and they met at Pinhoe; and as soon as they joined battle the English army gave way, and the Danes made a great slaughter there, and then rode over the land-and ever their next raid was worse than the one before it.' The annal in MS A concludes with an addition by another contemporary scribe, to the effect that terms were presently made with the Vikings and they accepted peace;23 but the main chronicler makes plain that the

22 ASC, ed. Plummer, i, 132-3; EHD, no. I, pp. 237-8. See also MS A, ed.J. Bately (The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Collaborative Edition, ed. D. Dumville and S. Keynes, iii, Cambridge, I986).

23The addition was already present in the manuscript when MS G was copied from it, some time during the first decade of the i i th century.

ALFRED THE GREAT AND .ETHELRED THE UNREADY

terms agreed by the king and his counsellors involved the supply of

provisions and the payment of f24,ooo.24 The contrast between these accounts illustrates quite effectively

how the main chronicler may have put his own interpretation on events regarded in a different light by contemporaries. Thus a picture of apparently heroic resistance against the odds becomes one of several instances in the main account of the precipitate flight of a multitude; indeed, one sometimes wonders whether the main chronicler saw treachery and cowardice where contemporaries experi- enced reverses which in the circumstances were unavoidable.25 Or a picture of local disruption on a relatively small scale is turned into wholesale devastation, raising one's suspicion that many of the main chronicler's laments about rampaging Vikings may have more rhe- toric than reality behind them. It is particularly interesting, however, to note that the scribe who added the casual remark at the end of the Winchester annal, about the making of peace, used the Old English idiom (nimanfrid) familiar from the Alfredian chronicle, for this might be taken to suggest that a contemporary, at this stage in the reign, saw nothing especially remarkable about the policy of

paying tribute to the Vikings;26 it is only the later AEthelredian chronicler who spells out the details, perhaps reflecting his disillusionment with the policy after years of bitter experience. Whatever one may say, the practice of buying off the Vikings will always be associated with AEthelred in particular, and it will always be regarded as the most serious indictment of his military capabilities and as the most striking reflection of the difference between him and the great King Alfred. So at best one can invoke St Jude (patron saint of lost causes), and urge that we should try to understand the policy

24 This took place in 00oo2; so the fact that the reference to the making of peace in MS A is an addition may indicate that the annal itself was indeed strictly contemporary.

25 One might even go so far as to suggest that some of the supposed flights might have been tactical withdrawals, or instances of the armies separating of their own accord (as at the battle of Sherston in IoI6); and perhaps it was not only at the battle of Maldon that the flight of one man was mistaken for the flight of the leader. Some consideration should be given to the question whether tactics and strategy in AEthelred's reign were determined solely by practical experience, or whether there was some input of a more theoretical kind: one thinks of the possible influence of military manuals (cf. B. Bachrach, 'The practical use of Vegetius' De Re Militari during the early middle ages', The Historian, xlvii (1985), 239-55), and of AElfric's remarks in Wyrdwriteras (on which see S. Keynes, The Diplomas of King Ethelred 'the Unready' 978-ioi6 (Cambridge, 1980), 206-8); and note the chronicler's reference in his annal for I003 to the saying 'When the leader gives way, the whole army will be much hindered' (cf. ASC, ed. Plummer, ii. 183).

26The same idiom is used in MS A's annal for 99I, where the main chronicler again refers explicitly to a payment of tribute.

203

TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

from the contemporary's point of view. It was not something which proceeded from AEthelred alone, and indeed it was not something uniquely characteristic of Ethelred's reign.27 It may even have been the best policy available in what must have been pretty wretched circumstances: fighting may not always have been an option, for it presupposes that the English would have had time to assemble an army, that it would have been wise for them to risk the consequences of defeat, and above all that the Vikings themselves were prepared to do battle; paying tribute might have seemed the better course of action if it could be afforded, since (at least in theory) time would be gained, lives would be spared, crops and livestock would be saved, and there would be no risk of total disaster. In 991 Ealdor- man Byrhtnoth rejected the option of paying tribute and resolved to fight:28 he died a heroic death, and gained immortality in 325 lines of Old English verse, but the countryside was ravaged and tribute had to be paid nonetheless; there were other instances of heroic resistance, but perhaps the English learnt a lesson at Maldon which they found hard to forget.29 Of course the danger was that the Vikings could not necessarily be trusted, and the same ones, or others, might soon come back for more; in that sense King ,Ethelred was a victim of Catch 22.

The accounts of Alfred and AEthelred in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, if taken at face value, might suggest a contrast between a brave man and a coward, or a strong king and a weak one, or a good policy and a bad one, or indeed between success and failure; but it emerges from the above that the course and conduct of military affairs in each king's reign may have been more closely comparable than at first sight appears, and that it is the chroniclers who have effectively polarised matters by presenting them in their different ways. Of course the main and obvious moral is that chroniclers represent nothing more than a personal view, and that while we may be grateful for what they say there is no reason why we should neces-

27 Keynes, Diplomas, 202-3; see also M. K. Lawson, 'The collection of Danegeld and Heregeld in the reigns of Athelred II and Cnut', English Historical Review (hereafter EHR), xcix (I984), 721-38, and E. Joranson, The Danegeld in France (Rock Island, Ill., 1923).

28 The Battle of Maldon, ed. D. G. Scragg (Manchester, 1981), 57-9, 11. 25-6i. The poet's account of the message conveyed by the Viking messenger presents a case for paying tribute which would have made sense to many Englishmen (and note his use of the words 'niman fri6 at us' in this connection); but there is no mistaking what this poet considered to be the more honourable response.

29For contemporary attitudes to the payments of tribute, see Keynes, 'Declining reputation', 250 n. 66, and Diplomas, 202 n. 182; on the battle of Maldon as a turning-point, see E. John, 'War and society in the tenth century: the Maldon campaign', ante, 5th ser., xxvii (i977), I73-95, esp. 189-90.

204


sarily accept their presentation of events. It is not that historians in the twentieth century are wiser than chroniclers in the ninth or eleventh century, but that we would simply like to know how others felt: for example, it would be helpful to have an account of the warfare in the 87os written by a West Saxon in 878, when King Alfred was in his retreat at Athelney and the Danes were controlling the kingdom, or an account of the warfare in the 99os written around the year Iooo by someone in the king's circle who was fully conscious of the military situation;30 one might add how interesting it would be to have the reflections of someone like Archbishop AEthelred of Canterbury on the burdens imposed by King Alfred in the 88os,31 to set beside Wulfstan's Sermo ad Anglos, or an account of King AEthelred's government written by a court chaplain, to set beside Asser's Life of King Alfred.

Needless to say, no amount of special pleading can alter the fact that Alfred survived his Viking onslaught whereas -Ethelred did not. There are, however, some obvious considerations which should prevent one from judging AEthelred's failure in terms of Alfred's success. While I am in no way qualified to play the part of an armchair ealdorman, it is important to emphasize that the military situation which confronted iEthelred was quite different in nature from that which had previously confronted Alfred.32 The 'great armies' which had invaded England in 865 and 87I may have numbered as many as two or three thousand men,33 but from Alfred's point of view their effectiveness as a fighting force would have been diminished by their activities and settlements in East Anglia, Northumbria and Mercia; the army which attacked Wessex in 878 was probably a shadow of its former self, and having achieved its initial success by surprise it was soon overwhelmed at Edington; while the 'great army' which invaded England in 892 had left the continent after a

long campaign involving some recent defeats, and must have been as seriously afflicted as the English were in the three years from 893

30A chapter-heading in Ealdorman 4Ethelweard's Chronicle suggests that he intended to write an account of King AEthelred 'and his deeds' (The Chronicle of Ethel- weard, ed. A. Campbell (Nelson's Medieval Texts, 1962), 34); but if ever written, it has not survived.

31There can be no doubt that Alfred trod heavily on his people, and on the Church, in order to achieve his purposes: see Pope John VIII's letter to Archbishop IEthelred (EHD, no. 222), and Asser, Life, ch.gI. For the apparent diversion of the lands of the Kentish minsters into royal hands, possibly in the late 9th century, see N. Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester, 1984), 204-5; and for a similar phenomenon in a wider context, see R. Fleming, 'Monastic lands and England's defence in the Viking Age', EHR, c (1985), 247-65.

32 Cf. P. H. Sawyer, From Roman Britain to Norman England (1978), 128-9. 33 Keynes and Lapidge, 2 o n. 6.

205


to 895 by what the chronicler calls 'a mortality of cattle and men'.34 The armies active in England in the earlier part of AJthelred's reign may have been comparable in size with the 'great armies' of the ninth century, but latterly they would appear to have been larger still, numbering anything between five and ten thousand men;35 moreover, they included professional soldiers recruited from throughout Scandinavia, and at their core were men brought up in the regime of Harold Bluetooth, products of a land effectively organized for war.36 Nor should one forget that their purpose, at least initially, was to extort money from the English and then to return home with their ill-gotten gains: this made them a particularly difficult threat to counter, since they could best achieve their ends by exploiting their mobility to avoid direct engagements and to gener- ate fear wherever they went or threatened to go. The cumulative effect of the raiding armies, over a period of thirty years, must have been thoroughly to demoralize the English people, and it is small wonder that latterly their resistance crumbled in the path of the forces of conquest led first by Swein Forkbeard and then by Cnut.

If the nature of the Viking threat was rather different for AEthelred than it had been for Alfred, so too was the field of his operation. For all his pretensions to be 'king of the Anglo-Saxons' and leader of the English people in their struggle against the Vik- ings,37 Alfred's record is judged on his ability to defend the kingdom of Wessex: he certainly had to contend with some degree of internal dissension,38 and he needed to impose heavy demands on his people,39 but nevertheless he was able to draw on a reserve of natural loyalty at those critical moments when the survival of his kingdom was threatened. AEthelred's record, on the other hand, is judged on his ability to defend the kingdom of England; and more to the point, he was heir to all the tensions generated by the various political, social and religious developments which had gone into the making of that kingdom in the tenth century.40 Although political unity had

34ASC, ed. Plummer, i. 89-90; EHD, no. I, p. 205; according to the Annals of Saint- Vaast, the Vikings had left the continent in 892 because of a famine in Francia.

35 Keynes, Diplomas, 224-5. 36 E. Roesdahl, Viking Age Denmark (I982), 134-58; and N. Lund, 'The armies of

Swein Forkbeard and Cnut: leding or lid?', forthcoming in ASE, xv ( 986). 37 Keynes and Lapidge, 38-41. 38 E.g. Asser, Life, chs. 91 and o6, and EHD, no. 00.

39 Above, n. 31. 40Cf. P. Stafford, 'The reign of AEthelred II: a study in the limitations on royal

policy and action', in Ethelred the Unready, ed. Hill, I5-46. Much is to be gained in the understanding of these aspects of Ioth-century England from a consideration of the East-Frankish kingdom: see, e.g., K. Leyser, 'Henry I and the beginnings of the Saxon Empire', EHR, lxxxiii (1968), 1-32, and Rule and Conflict in an Early Medieval Society: Ottonian Saxony (1979).

ALFRED THE GREAT AND ETHELRED THE UNREADY

been achieved in Athelstan's reign, some fifty years before AEthelred's accession, it had never seemed secure until the latter part of Edgar's reign, a mere five years before his accession.41 At best, therefore, AEthelred might hope to command the loyalty of the West Saxons, but that of the Mercians, Northumbrians and inhabitants of the Danelaw could not have been taken for granted;42 and if within his ancestral kingdom the king could rely on the force of his own presence and personality, elsewhere he would be far more dependent on others to represent and advance his interests. One can easily appreciate his difficulties. Above all, he would have to overcome the consequences of the consolidation over several generations of the more prominent families in the land: their expectations of prefer- ment and political influence, often owed in part to their blood ties with the king; their rivalries among themselves, which might find expression in their alignment on the hot political issues of the day, or in their desire to establish and maintain control over whatever high offices lay within their grasp; and the dangers inherent in their accumulation of power and command of loyalty in the localities.43

41 If the unification of England seemed to make particular progress during the reigns of Athelstan and Edgar, this may be in part attributable to the fact that both kings, though members of the West Saxon dynasty, had begun their reigns as kings of the Mercians; Ethelred did not enjoy such an advantage. Cf. P. Wormald's review of Leyser, Rule and Conflict, in EHR, xcvi ( 981), 595-60 , at 598.

42Cf. Sir Frank Stenton's reference (Anglo-Saxon England (3rd edn., Oxford, 1971), 374) to the obliteration in Ethelred's reign of the 'instinctive loyalty of the common people'. In the mind of the Maldon poet, Ealdorman Byrhtnoth's loyalty was to the king, but that of the rest was to Byrhtnoth; in the Chronicle for 10I4, it is the counsellors who expressed their loyalty-on certain conditions-to the king.

43The two most powerful families of the oth century have been the subject of detailed studies: see C.R. Hart, 'Athelstan "Half-King" and his family', ASE, ii

(1973), 115-44, and A. Williams, 'Princeps Merciorum gentis: the Family, Career and Connections of Elfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia 956-83', ASE, x (I982), 143-72. Re- search in progress by Robin Fleming (on the connections between the lay aristocracy and the royal family) and Katie Mack (on thegns in the ioth century) will add further to our understanding of such matters. Another family in need of reconsider- ation is that of Ealdorman Elfgar of Essex and his two daughters Ethelfled (wife of King Edmund, and latterly of Ealdorman Ethelstan of south-east Mercia) and /Elfflied (wife of Ealdorman Byrhtnoth of Essex). The wills of all three survive (Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. D. Whitelock (Cambridge, I930), nos. 2, 14 and 15), and show how elaborate arrangements were made for the provision of a substantial endowment for their favoured religious house at Stoke by Nayland in Suffolk. It is remarkable to find, however, that the endowment was dispersed in the first half of the I Ith century (ibid., p. 105), apparently before the end of Cnut's reign (see C. Hart, 'The Mersea charter of Edward the Confessor,' Essex Archaeology and History, xii (1980), 94-I02, at 96-7), and one wonders whether this was the outcome of some domestic intrigue; /Elfflaed appointed Ethelmer, son of Ealdorman Ethelweard, to act as advocate for the foundation and its property, and it may be that the dispersal of Stoke's endowment followed AEthelmaer's apparent removal from his position of influence in court circles, in I005-6.

207


In principle it might have been possible for the king to operate through the network of reeves of various kinds, but it would appear that /Ethelred had as much difficulty as his predecessors in prevent- ing the more unscrupulous of their number from exploiting the ad- vantages of their position; he also had to handle the consequences of the inevitable clashes of interest between the reeves and his ealdormen.44 One might add that the royal patronage enjoyed by many churches and monasteries in the tenth century had created further problems, of disaffected parties with cause to resent the greater influence of churchmen in so many different areas.45 It is true that JEthelred had far greater resources of manpower and wealth than Alfred, and more highly developed institutions of government, but given the dimensions of the threat, and the difficulty of concentrat- ing his forces at the right time and place (without, as it were, the Vikings' co-operation), it would not have been easy to turn his theoretical advantage to practical effect.46 The kingdom of England created by the prodigious efforts of a succession of kings from Alfred to Edgar might have held together in times of peace, but when subjected to pressure from outside the whole fragile edifice threatened to come apart at the seams.

I said at the beginning that the tendency persists to explain the different fortunes of Alfred and AEthelred in terms of their respective personalities; but again, the exercise of comparing the two kings in such terms does not explain why one succeeded where the other failed, but serves instead to expose the true gulf between the case of a king who can be approached at this level, and the case of one who remains largely inscrutable.

Let us first consider how close we can come to an understanding of what made King Alfred tick. The sources available for Alfred include not only a contemporary biography written by a court chaplain, but also the king's will, a law-code which seems to reflect the king's personal concerns, and of course the substantial body of his writings. On this basis we may judge Alfred to have been one whose practice of kingship was determined by his response to a variety of influences, some pragmatic, some intellectual, some native and some continental. He would have learnt much from the experience of earlier Anglo-Saxon kings, whether through his own knowledge of

44Cf. Keynes, Diplomas, 198 n. I65. The unjust exactions of reeves were perhaps the cause of much of the disaffection in the latter part of AEthelred's reign; see also Lawson, 723-32, andJ. Green, 'The sheriffs of William the Conqueror', Anglo-Norman Studies, v, ed. R. A. Brown (Woodbridge, I983), 129-45.

45John, 176-83. 46 n the strengths and weaknesses of Anglo-Saxon military organization, see R.

Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England (Berkeley, forthcoming).

208


their activities, or through the collective wisdom of his family, friends and counsellors; much of what he did can be seen as an extension of past practices, and his particular concern to emulate his predecessors is also reflected in his will and in his law-code.47 Alfred would have gained knowledge of continental ideas and practices through his father's marriage to a Carolingian princess, through his visits to the court of Charles the Bald and to Rome, and through the presence in Wessex of John the Old Saxon and Grimbald of Saint-Bertin. Indeed, one suspects that the influence of Grimbald was of particular significance:48 he may have introduced into court circles knowledge of Einhard's Life of Charlemagne, and perhaps even of some of the ninth-century Carolingian tracts on kingship, such as Sedulius Scot- tus's On Christian Rulers or Hincmar's On the Governance of the Palace; for there is good reason to believe that the example and teaching of these works rubbed off on Alfred himself.49 There are other specific aspects of Alfred's activities which might reflect some degree of Car- olingian influence, though it has to be said that there is danger in casting Alfred too firmly in a Carolingian mould.50 One also has to bear in mind the effect on Alfred of the various works which were studied and translated into English during his reign: it is clear, for example, that Bede's Ecclesiastical History lies behind his conception of the link between supporting the Church and worldly prosperity, which comes across so clearly in the preface to the Old English Pastoral Care, and Alfred's own translations show abundantly how he responded to the original texts and found their teaching applicable to his own position.51 But perhaps the most deep-rooted influence on Alfred was his knowledge of the Bible: Asser remarks several times on Alfred's love of the Scriptures in general, and of the Psalms in particular,52 and if we may imagine, therefore, that Alfred was

47 One might instance his cultivation of an alliance with Mercia; his extension of the burghal system; his recognition of the need to follow Egbert and iEthelwulf in harbouring the resources of the West Saxon dynasty; and his respect for the legislation of earlier Anglo-Saxon kings. See also P. Wormald, in The Anglo-Saxons, ed. J. Camp- bell (Oxford, I982), i42 and 149, andJanet Nelson's remarks, above, 55-6.

48 Cf. Asser, Life, ch. 78, and Keynes and Lapidge, 260 n. I68. 49 Of course the literary influence of Einhard on Asser was direct; but the parallels

between the former's account of Charlemagne's activities and the latter's account of Alfred's are often so close that one can hardly resist the notion that Einhard's Char- lemagne had been held up to Alfred as a model of kingship. The tracts are discussed by J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, Early Germanic Kingship (Oxford, 1971), 135-40; there is no evidence that any one of them was known at Alfred's court, but someone like Grim- bald must have been aware of their general contents (and cf. Keynes and Lapidge, 216 n. 43).

50 SeeJanet Nelson's remarks, above, 49-52. 51Wallace-Hadrill, I41-8; Keynes and Lapidge, 28-35. 62 Life, chs. 24, 76, 88, 99 and 103.

209

2IO TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

brought up on the biblical stories of David and Solomon it requires little further imagination to see what effect their example might have had on his own exercise of kingship. Indeed, wherever one looks in Alfred's reign one finds reflections of what might be called the biblical dimension of his kingship: in the amplified version of the West Saxon royal genealogy, taken beyond Woden through various Germanic heroes to Seth, son of Noah, and so on back to Adam himself;53 in the substantial section of Mosaic law which serves as a forerunner to Alfred's legislation for his own people;54 in Alfred's programme for the revival of religion and learning, which, in so far as its purpose was to secure God's favour in the struggle against the Vikings, might be regarded as an implementation of David's advice in the psalms; in Alfred's own translation of the first fifty psalms of the Psalter; in the various ways in which Alfred's kingship recalls the biblical accounts of the kingship of Solomon, most obviously, of course, in the king's personal devotion to the pursuit of wisdom;55 and perhaps in the revised version of the Anglo-Saxon coronation ordo, which may have been a product of Alfred's reign and which incorporates a new prayer petitioning God to endow the ruler with all the qualities of the Old Testament kings.56 Perhaps there is little in Alfred's conception and practice of kingship that is truly original; his originality lay rather in the extent to which he, more than any other king, took the responsibilities of his office to heart, and in his ability to look beyond the end of his own nose. Even so, we should not claim too much familiarity with Alfred: for it is always salutary to reflect that had his 'Handbook' survived to this day, with its collection of Alfred's favourite prayers, psalms and other texts, our understanding of what made him tick would have been trans- formed.57

The purpose of that digression on Alfred's kingship was to show what can be done for him, but of course King Alfred is exceptional: it is not through mere chance that we have a contemporary biography and a substantial body of his own writings, for it is a mark of his distinction that he inspired the former and generated the latter; and it is by virtue of this material that we can approach him so closely,

53 Ibid., ch. I; see also Keynes and Lapidge, 228 n. 4 and 268 n. 208.

54Wallace-Hadrill, 148-9; P. Wormald, 'Lex Scripta and Verbum Regis: legislation and Germanic kingship, from Euric to Cnut', Early Medieval Kingship, ed. P. H. Saw- yer and I. N. Wood (Leeds, 1977), Io5-38, at 132.

55 Asser makes the comparison explicit in his Life, ch. 76; see also ch. 99. 56The prayer in question is 'Omnipotens sempiterne Deus': the main elements of

the prayer are derived from Carolingian ordines of the late 9th century, but as a whole it is cast in a form applicable to English conditions. For further details, see J. Nelson, 'The Second English Ordo', in her Politics and Ritual in the Early Middle Ages (1986).

57 Keynes and Lapidge, 268 n. 208.


and understand him in such intimate and personal terms. The lack of comparable material for AEthelred is thus an indication that in certain respects he was no match for his illustrious forebear, but it also means that we are simply not in a position to understand what traits of character may have lain behind his recorded actions. There would be no need to take the matter so seriously if failings of character on .Ethelred's part were not so often adduced in explanation of the unhappy turn of events during the reign, as if the rot spread downwards from the top and as if the Vikings were quick to exploit their opportunity. One has to ask, therefore, whether any of the alleged personal characteristics of AEthelred have a secure basis in contemporary evidence; and one has to answer that if some tend to evaporate on closer inspection, those which remain comprise just one factor among the many which contributed to the final collapse of English resistance.

I must limit my discussion of this point to two aspects of King AEthelred's character, one which I would regard as imaginary and the other which I would accept as real. It was once said, and it is often repeated, that .Ethelred was a king prone to 'acts of spasmodic violence';58 and this is undeniably the general impression created by the references in the Chronicle to events such as the ravaging of Rochester in 986, the blinding of AElfgar in 993, the massacre of St Brice's Day in I002, and the blinding of Wulfheah and Ufegeat (not to mention the killing of Ealdorman AElfhelm) in Ioo6. But while a cursory reading might well suggest that these events proceeded from nothing other than sudden fits of spite, paranoia or rage, the truth would seem to be that the chronicler was merely taking knowledge of their proper background and context for granted. Each of these events had deep roots in the political and military affairs of the day. For example, the ravaging of Rochester was one manifestation of a dispute between the king and Bishop AElfstan which lasted three or four years;59 whatever form it took, it should be set beside those other occasions in the tenth and eleventh centuries when kings re- sorted to ravaging as a means of punishment.60 As for the massacre of St Brice's Day: horrific maybe, but we should understand that it was probably aimed not at all the inhabitants of the Danelaw, but at mercenaries, traders and other Danes whose trustworthiness the king and his counsellors had good reason to suspect; and we should

58 Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 374; J. Campbell, 'England, France, Flanders and Germany: some comparisons and connections', in Ethelred the Unready, ed. Hill, 255- 70, at 255-6, puts the violence in a continental perspective.

69 Keynes, Diplomas, 178-80. 60 Cf. Eadred's ravaging of Thetford in 952, and Edgar's ravaging of Thanet in

969; Worcestershire was ravaged on Harthacnut's orders in I04I, and Edward the Confessor ordered the ravaging of Dover in I 051.

21 I

2 I2 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

remember that it was carried out by Englishmen who had suffered twenty years of unprovoked Viking attack.61 Perhaps one can resist the temptation to claim it as a triumph of organization,62 but it is easy to understand why in its day it might have been one of King AEthelred's more popular decisions.

The blindings carried out in 993 and Ioo6 must be understood against the background of domestic intrigue at King AEthelred's court. In 992 Ealdorman AJlfric had allegedly behaved in a cowardly manner, and it is usually assumed that the blinding of his son AElfgar in 993 was a spiteful and barbaric act of vengeance visited on the innocent son while the father went unpunished; it is far more likely, however, that AElfgar's blinding had nothing to do with what his father is alleged to have done, for other evidence suggests that AElfgar himself was one of those who had been leading the king astray in earlier years, and from whose influence the king had escaped by 993, in which case AElfgar's blinding in that same year might be regarded as due punishment for his own crime.63 It is more difficult to comprehend the blindings carried out in Ioo6, but to regard them as 'acts of spasmodic violence' would be to remove them from their proper context in a complex tale of palace revolution.64 I should also emphasize that these blindings belong squarely in the context of Anglo-Saxon law. For much of the tenth century one of the penalties prescribed for serious or inveterate of- fenders was death, but it seems to have been in the early 97os, during the reign of Edgar, that the alternative of comprehensive mutilation was introduced, intended as an act of kindness since a man who was yet alive (if only just) could still make amends to God and save his soul; Edgar's law on mutilation presumably remained in force throughout /Ethelred's reign, though it does not break sur- face in the surviving codes until that of Cnut.65 So whether we like it or not, it is not the form of the punishment which should give us concern, but whether it was deserved in the particular case.66 I

61 Keynes, Diplomas, 203-5. 62 Campbell, 'England, France, Flanders and Germany', 260; cf. H. R. Loyn, 'Eth-

elred the Unready', in Ethelred the Unready, ed. Hill, 271-3, at 272. 63 Keynes, Diplomas, 183-4. 64 Ibid., 209- I 3. 65 See D. Whitelock, 'Wulfstan Cantor and Anglo-Saxon law', Nordica et Anglica, ed.

A. H. Orrick (Mouton, The Hague, I968), 83-92, at 83-7. Professor Whitelock de- pended on Wulfstan Cantor's poem on St Swithun, composed in the early 99os, but it should be noted that Wulfstan's account is a versification of Lantfred's Translatio et Miracula S. Swithuni (written in the early 970s), ch. 26, which should therefore have

priority; an edition and translation of both works will appear in M. Lapidge, The Cult of St Swithun (Winchester Studies 4.2, Oxford, forthcoming).

66 A similar point is made in a different context by C. W. Hollister, 'Royal acts of mutilation: the case against Henry I', Albion, x (1978), 330-40.


might add in this connection that there is a wealth of evidence (in law-codes, charters and narrative sources) for aspects of crime and punishment in the reign of iEthelred the Unready, and that it is only when all this material has been examined, and placed alongside similar evidence relating to law enforcement in earlier and later periods, that one will be in a position to judge the actual quality of AEthelred's legal regime.67 At all events, I should be very surprised if JEthelred struck his contemporaries as particularly violent or vicious; and I would hesitate, therefore, before suggesting that it was acts of violence on his part that alienated his subjects and cost him their support.

There is, however, one alleged personal characteristic of King ,Ethelred which does seem to have some basis in fact, and it is to this that I wish finally to turn: the notion that he was a poor judge of men. A small number of Athelred's charters contain complaints by the king about the counsellors who had misled him, and these are often cited as evidence to this effect; but it is important to recognize that these complaints refer specifically to a period in the later 98os when the king was certainly led badly astray, and not to the general quality of the guidance he received at other times.68 iEthelred might also have been unfortunate in his choice of military leaders, since to judge from the Chronicle they had a disturbing tendency to run away; though we have seen that it might be unwise always to accept the chronicler at his word, and that the action of these leaders might have been interpreted in a different way by those who were fully conscious of the military situation.

In one case, however, the king does seem to have been utterly misguided, and that is in the trust he apparently placed in the notorious Eadric Streona, ealdorman of Mercia. Indeed, I think it is particularly important to realise how strong was Eadric's influence over the king in the closing decade of the reign, and how much Eadric's behaviour might have contributed to the final collapse. According to Osbern of Canterbury, Eadric was 'a man of some- what low origin, whose tongue nevertheless gained him wealth and high rank: he was crafty by nature and a smooth talker, and sur- passed all his contemporaries in malice and perfidy, as much as in pride and cruelty'.69 Having apparently engineered the coup which

671 intend to return to this subject in a future paper; cf. Keynes, Diplomas, 97 and 200-2. See also P. Wormald, 'Ethelred the Lawmaker', in Ethelred the Unready, ed. Hill, 47-80, at 48, and 'Charters, law and the settlement of disputes in Anglo-Saxon England', in Dispute Settlement in Early Medieval Europe, ed. W. Davies and P. Fouracre (Cambridge, 1986). 68 Keynes, Diplomas, o I and i86.

69H. Wharton, Anglia Sacra (2 vols., 1691), ii. 132 (from Osbern's Vita S. Elphegi); cf. Florentii Wigorniensis monachi Chronicon ex Chronicis, ed. B. Thorpe (2 vols., 1848-9), i. 159-6o. Henry of Huntingdon introduces Eadric as 'a new traitor, but a great one'.

213


ousted the earlier generation of counsellors in Ioo6, Eadric was appointed ealdorman of Mercia in 1007, and presently achieved a position in court circles which represented something of a departure from the norm, and which set the pattern for the rest of the Anglo- Saxon period.70 Up to about IoIo there would appear to have been a degree of equality among the various ealdormen, but after that date Eadric seems to have gained priority over the others (including those senior to him): his pre-eminence is indicated in the king's charters (for Eadric consistently heads the lists of ealdormen);71 it is suggested by the chronicler's remark in annal 1012 that 'Ealdorman Eadric and the counsellors' did such-and-such a thing (where the

expression hitherto had been 'the king and his councillors'); and it is reflected in a remark of a later Worcester monk, to the effect that Eadric 'presided over the whole kingdom of the English, and had dominion as if a sub-king'.72 It was not without good reason that he came to be known as Eadric Streona, 'the acquisitor'.

There can be no mistaking how much Eadric's behaviour contributed, directly or indirectly, to the downfall of the English in the

closing years of AEthelred's reign. In 1009, for example, the king had

managed to intercept the Vikings 'with all his army ... and the whole people was ready to attack them', but if we may believe the chronicler, this golden opportunity was lost through some unspeci- fied action by Ealdorman Eadric. But it was in 1015-I6 that Eadric

really came into his own. At an assembly held at Oxford in 1015, he engineered the betrayal and murder of Sigeferth and Morcar

(styled 'the chief thegns of the Seven Boroughs'); whereupon the

king seized their property and ordered Sigeferth's widow to be

brought to Malmesbury, but the aetheling Edmund took her against his father's will, married her, and himself assumed control of the forfeited estates. The chronicler's account gives no indication of what

lay behind this crisis, and it is for historians to debate its likely origins. One suggestion propounded recently is that the crisis arose from tensions within the royal family: the aetheling Edmund feared

70Keynes, Diplomas, 21I-I4; see also S. Keynes, 'The additions in Old English', The rork Gospels, ed. N. Barker (Roxburghe Club, i986), 81-99, at 95 n. 67.

71 See Keynes, Diplomas, Table 6. Among nine previously unknown Anglo-Saxon charters, copied in the I6th century from a lost cartulary of Barking abbey, are two dated i8 Apr. 1013 and 20 Apr. 1013 respectively: in the first the ealdormen are listed in the order Eadric, Leofwine and AElfric, and in the second, in the order Eadric, AElfric, Leofwine and Uhtred. I owe my knowledge of these charters to the kindness of C. R. Hart, who is currently preparing an edition.

72 Hemingi Chartularium Ecclesiae Wigorniensis, ed. T. Hearne (2 vols., Oxford, 1723), i. 280- ; H. P. R. Finberg, The Early Charters of the West Midlands (2nd edn., Leicester, 1972), 234. For the suggestion that Eadric profiteered from the geld, see Lawson, 732-4-

214

ALFRED THE GREAT AND ATHELRED THE UNREADY

that his prospects had been jeopardized by the king's second marriage, and was despairing of his father's failure and incompetence, so he connived with others (including Sigeferth and Morcar) to make his own bid for the throne; it would follow that Eadric Streona is to be cast in an honourable role, as the loyal retainer who exposed the son's plot against the father.73 It could be argued, however, that the crisis sprang from quite different roots: that Eadric resented the increasing influence in court circles of Sigeferth and Morcar,74 and organized their murder in order to preserve his own position (just as he had previously orchestrated the coup which brought him to power); and that Edmund's act of defiance was conceived in response to these machinations of Eadric, and in particular as a chal- lenge to Eadric's position of influence with the king. It might be argued further that such a view makes better sense of the sequel, for it was perhaps the combination of Edmund's success in gaining the submission of the Five Boroughs, and the arrival of Cnut's army in the midst of this highly charged domestic situation, that precipitated Eadric's defection to the Danish side; and if it was this act which cleared the way for the evident co-operation between Edmund and his father in the closing months of the king's life,75 it was Eadric's defection which at the same time effectively undermined English resistance to the Danes.

Quite frankly, I wish I could understand how Eadric Streona managed to achieve the degree of influence that he evidently enjoyed

73 Stafford, 35-7; see also the summary of a lecture on Eadric by M. W. Campbell, in the Anglo-Norman Anonymous, ii (2) (I984), 9- o. There is no evidence that Emma had managed to gain preferential treatment for any sons of her own by her marriage to Athelred, at least to judge from the order in which the aethelings attest Ethelred's charters (Keynes, Diplomas, Table I); but she had more success with Cnut (Encomium Emmae Reginae, ed. A. Campbell (Camden 3rd ser., lxxii, 1949), 32-3).

74Their importance is suggested by their description in the Chronicle as 'the chief thegns of the Seven Boroughs'; and note that Morcar was the beneficiary of at least three charters issued between Ioo9 and 1012 (Charters of Burton Abbey, ed. P.H. Sawyer (Anglo-Saxon Charters, ii, British Academy, 1979), nos. 32, 34 and 37). They were kinsmen (by marriage) of Ealdorman AElfhelm (ibid., xxxviii-xliii), and so might well have been hostile to Eadric (who had been involved in fElfhelm's murder); and they had some association with the atheling Athelstan (EHD, no. 129), which might account for their relationship with his brother Edmund. At the risk of reading too much into the charters, it may be that from a point in 1013 the influence of what might be regarded as Eadric's own faction among the thegns at court (his father and brothers, and AEthelmar, AEthelwold and iAlfgar: see Keynes, Diplomas, Table 8, and p. 227 n. 265) was eclipsed by Ulfcetel, Godwine, Sigeferth, Morcar and others; and that in I 15 his own position was at stake.

76 There is no reason to believe that Edmund was for long in defiance of his father; two charters which he issued in 1015-16 contain no hint of it, and when he ravaged Mercia in company with Uhtred, in IOI6, he was probably striking against Eadric himself.

215


in the latter part of AEthelred's reign; after all, it is not as if Eadric belonged to the established aristocracy and commanded local interests which the king could not afford to ignore, so one can only imagine that he was picked out by AEthelred for purely personal reasons, perhaps as part of an attempt to break the monopoly which the established aristocracy had come to hold over the high offices of state,76 and that somehow Eadric was able to take advantage of his position, and of the king. It may be, for example, that AEthelred was prevented from taking control of the situation in IOI5 by the onset of an illness which led to his death a few months later, in April IOI6, for we should not forget that in 1015 the king was nearly 50 years old, and that the chronicler describes him as lying sick at Cosham at the time of Cnut's arrival in that year; nor should we forget the keenness of the English to have their king with them, for that is a sure sign that all had not lost faith in him. Whatever the explanation, the king's apparent inactivity in the last months of his life stands in stark contrast not only to the (alleged) military heroics of Alfred, but also to the tremendous energy of Edmund Ironside after the death of his father in IoI6. Of course, Edmund may have been far better able to conduct and stand the strain of a prolonged military campaign, and if his resistance seems more resolute than tEthelred's had been, it must be said that the military situation had changed. In the earlier part of AEthelred's reign it might have been deemed wiser to buy the Vikings off, but in 1016 there could be no question of pursuing the same policy. Cnut was determined to achieve the conquest of England, and was for that reason prepared to fight. Edmund was accordingly required to make an issue of it, but his efforts were undone, as his father's had been, by the repeated treachery of Eadric Streona: if it was a sign of AEthelred's bad judge- ment that he had placed his trust in Eadric in the first place, it must be a sign of Edmund's desperation that he presently agreed to take Eadric back onto the English side,77 just as it is a sign of Eadric's opportunism that he first made that approach and then switched his allegiance back to Cnut at the Battle of Ashingdon, and equally a sign of Cnut's good sense that he tolerated Eadric for no longer than was necessary-for within the year he had chopped off his head.

Eadric Streona thus played a leading role in the drama of Eng- land's fall; and while King AEthelred might have misjudged him in giving him the part, Eadric did much himself to add to the compli- cations of the plot. I might add that a movement for the rehabili- tation of Eadric Streona already exists and is gathering support; but

76 Keynes, Diplomas, 197 n. I63. 77 As the chronicler puts it, 'no greater folly (unred) was ever agreed to than that

was'.

216

ALFRED THE GREAT AND ATHELRED THE UNREADY

to my mind not even Ethelred the Unready needs as much help as Eadric does from StJude.

It remains only to ask what has been achieved by this exercise of

placing Alfred and Ethelred side by side. I do not know whether the comparison ever suggested itself to those who lived in .Ethelred's

reign, when there was certainly some interest in Alfred,78 but it became a commonplace thereafter and has invariably been to

/Ethelred's disadvantage. I have tried above all to show that in

dealing with AEthelred we should resist the temptation to ask, for

example, why he failed where Alfred had succeeded, or to judge the one king in the light of the other: if the exercise of juxtaposition serves in some ways to soften the contrast between them, it shows more importantly why such direct comparisons must really be ruled out of court. Alfred and 1Ethelred are poles apart, in more ways than one, and each must be taken on his own terms. Alfred's distinction as a ruler is of an essentially personal kind, in the sense that it lies not so much in what he achieved as in those rare qualities which have caused him, more than any other Anglo-Saxon king, to

emerge in fully rounded form; and if that seems to be knocking him, nothing could be further from my mind. On the other hand, AEthelred's misfortune as a ruler was owed not so much to any supposed defects of his imagined character, as to a combination of circumstances which anyone would have found difficult to control; and if that looks like whitewashing, I should say that it is not the

king who needs to be redecorated, but our understanding of the

reign which needs to be rewired.

78 Campbell, 'England, France, Flanders and Germany', 257, reminds us that the burnt Cotton MS of Asser's Life of King Alfred was copied during AEthelred's reign; see also Keynes and Lapidge, 45-6 and 57 (and note that some understanding of an ?Ethelredian attitude to Alfred may be gained from an examination of Byrhtferth's treatment of Asser's Life in his historical miscellany).

217

A Tale of Two Kings Alfred the Great and Æthelred the Unready

Documents

Transcript of A Tale of Two Kings Alfred the Great and Æthelred the Unready